Family
by carrymearound
Summary: Summer Roberts had always wanted a family to call her own. She had finally found one. SS
1. Family

**Family**

Author's note: This is my very first fic, so please go gentle on me. I came up with this idea last night when I couldn't fall asleep, I just started thinking about Summer, and well this is what I came up with. I think this is going to be a one-shot, but I'm not entirely sure. Anyways, hope you like it and please review!

Summer Roberts had always wanted a family to call her own.

Even when her parents were still together she knew it wasn't right. Somehow they were different than the Cooper's and the Fisher's. Years later Summer would realize that the difference was that her parents didn't love each other, and sometimes she had to wonder if they even loved _her_. She promised herself that when she got married and had kids she'd never be like them.

Her mom was more interested in herself than her family, and her father was too busy working all the time, though Summer suspected from an early age that there was a little more to the story, that he had more than just a working relationship with his constant string of female assistants.

As she got older Summer gradually became closer with Marissa Cooper. Marissa had always been the most popular girl in the class, something about her was just special. So when Marissa invited Summer over for a sleepover one afternoon in second grade, she was happy to oblige. She fell in love with Marissa's family, they gradually became sort of a surrogate family for her. Julie Cooper would always have a soft spot in her heart for the little girl who's mother just packed up and abandoned her daughter and husband, she didn't see how anyone could ever do such a thing. Marissa's dad would call her "kiddo" and tuck both girls in at night, kissing them each on the forehead. Marissa's little sister, Kaitlin, would always interrupt them and want to play. Even though Summer pretended to be annoyed as Marissa was, she sort of liked Kaitlin's company and wondered what it'd be like to have a sister of her own. She decided that she wanted a huge family with lots of kids when she got older. Summer felt as if she belonged, it felt right at the Cooper's. But the weekend would always end and Summer would have to go back to her father and stepmother.

Summer's dad really did love her. He just... didn't know what to do with her. He wasn't much of a hands-on dad and found it much easier to just give Summer his credit card and have her buy herself something nice than actually interacting with her. In return Summer would pretend it didn't bother her, claiming she and her dad were really close and faking a relationship with him. It wasn't that bad, it just wasn't like Jimmy and Marissa.

As she grew up she became even more skilled at faking relationships. Sometimes she wondered if that's all her life was--fake. She climbed the social ladder to join Marissa at the top, and whoever said it was lonely up there was right. Marissa started dating Luke Ward, the most popular boy in the fifth grade, and once again Summer was alone. She started hanging out with Marissa's friend, Holly Fisher and the two soon became "friends" in the fakest sense of the word. Holly would set Summer up with random guys and get her and Marissa drunk for the first time. She'd teach the two how to smoke and always score the best weed. Marissa seemed to adjust to the whole partying scene smoothly, fitting right in. Summer however never really felt comfortable, personally she hated the taste of beer and had to train herself how to drink it. She'd rather it just be her and Marissa sitting around watching movies like they used to.

As the girls entered high school the parties doubled along with Marissa's problems. Summer wasn't sure how someone like Marissa could have all of these "issues" as Julie would call them, her life was a fairytale compared to her best friend's. Marissa began eating less and less and drinking more and more much to the delight of Holly and Luke, but Summer was worried about her. That would all start to change though when Marissa got a new next door neighbor.

Marissa and Summer had never paid much attention to Marissa's neighbors, the Cohen's, except to the fact that Seth Cohen was a freak. Summer didn't really see what was wrong with him, he was sort of cute and seemed nice, but it'd be too embarrassing to ask so she decided to go along with everyone else and hate him. It seemed to be working pretty well until Sandy Cohen brought home a boy from Chino, Summer wasn't sure of all the details but he and Marissa quickly became friends or whatever you could call it. As they became closer Summer found herself around Seth Cohen more and more. He was sort of awkward and liked to ramble a lot but she still didn't' see what was so bad about him, but it wasn't like she was going to admit that anytime soon.

It wasn't until Caleb Nichol's birthday party until Summer decided to be nice to Seth. Sure, she'd asked him to be her white knight at cotillion, but it wasn't as if she'd _wanted_ him to be, it was just that she was sort of stuck with him. Right? But then he'd turned her down for some pixie chick with a bad dye job. Whatever. Caleb Nichol basically owned Newport, and everyone who was anyone was going to be at his birthday party. She had to go. Summer had asked Seth to take her, and though her memory was a bit fuzzy at all of the exact details, there was one distinct one of her kissing him by the pool and him reciting her mermaid poem. It seemed like he really _liked_ her. Atleast until Anna came back from wherever it was that she was sailing to and Seth had chosen her over Summer.

Over the next year so much had happened. Jimmy and Julie had divorced, Marissa and Luke split up, Marissa OD'ed in TJ, Marissa and Ryan had gotten together, the whole Oliver fiasco, Anna left Seth, Seth had come over to her house and they'd lost their virginities together the day before Valentine's, they'd started going out, Ryan got his ex-girlfriend pregnant and left, Caleb and Julie got married. And oh yeah, Seth completely abandoned her.

She'd never forget the day she went over to his house, planning on surprising him and taking him and Marissa to visit Ryan in Chino. She'd impatiently pushed the doorbell three or four times, calling out to Seth until Sandy finally opened the door. Summer thought he looked like hell, it was like he'd aged 10 years overnight. Something was wrong. She remembered Kirsten sobbing into her shoulder, being handed Seth's letter, Kirsten telling her to stop over and she was still always welcome there. And most of all she remembered heading straight over to Marissa's and getting very, very drunk.

The next year had been equally memorable. Seth and Ryan had returned after Theresa lost the baby, and as much as Summer wanted to run back to Seth, she knew she couldn't. She had to be strong. Over the summer she'd started seeing Zach. He was perfect, the son of a politician, smart, handsome, athletic. But then again Summer didn't do well with perfection. She stayed with him until February or so, her longest relationship ever. She couldn't bring herself to love him though, no matter how hard she tried. And that scared her. What if she'd never love anyone again the way she'd loved Seth?

Summer was supposed to be in Zach's sister's wedding, but left him for Seth. There weren't really hard feelings, Zach seemed to understand which made her feel like even more of a bitch. But with Seth she felt like she was finally home.

Along with being back with Seth came being accepted back into the Cohen family. Of course she had always been welcome there, Sandy loved the girls spunk and the way Seth was when she was around, and Kirsten was always happy to have another female around the house. With the Cooper family since destroyed, Summer felt like she had found a replacement. Her father had never exactly approved of her seeing Seth, he'd been happy when she was with Zach, but Summer honestly didn't care anymore. She meant a lot more to the Cohen's than she did to her own family.

Right when they'd gotten back together things had started to become a mess though, Summer wondered if she and Seth would be able to have a normal relationship and just do boring couple-y stuff. Then again Summer wasn't really into that kind of a relationship. Seth had messed up a couple times as she predicted, and she ended up making out with Zach. But they'd found their way back to each other, Seth left a meeting with George Lucas or _whoever_ he was to come to the prom with her after all. Even though she and Zach had been announced prom king and queen, there was no one she'd rather be there with than Seth. That night Caleb had died, Summer knew Seth wasn't close to his grandfather but she still felt horrible for the whole family. She'd come over to console Seth, offering Kirsten a huge hug on her way up the stairs. It turned out to be Kirsten she should have been worried about, Kirsten who had been like another mom to her in the last year was going away to rehab for the summer, something Summer never thought possible.

The boys of course had no clue what to do without Kirsten around and Summer had basically moved in, taking charge right away. She'd learned to cook for them, or when they tired of her mac and cheese special, she'd take Kirsten's job of ordering out though everyone swore the food tasted different when Kirsten wasn't the one ordering it.

Sandy had been in a daze all summer, so it was no wonder that he didn't realize the fact that Summer had taken camp in Seth's room, or the pregnancy test shoved in Seth's bathroom garbage under a mound of tissue.

She didn't have to wait until the strip turned blue.

Summer Roberts had always wanted a family to call her own. She had finally found one.


	2. In This Together

Author's note: Wow, I opened up my e-mail and was shocked anyone reviewed at all, and even more surprised that they were positive. Big thanks to those who did. I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, it's sort of a filler until I decide what to do, I've got about three different scenarios I'd love to put them in, but can only pick one. Oh, in my little alternative universe Trey never came around. Things are complicated enough without him.

Summer parked her car outside the Family Planning Clinic, taking a deep breath and looking over to Seth. "So, um, you ready?" she asked nervously, biting her bottom lip.

She'd ended up telling him the night before. They were laying in Seth's bed watching another one of his stupid little cartoons that she secretly sort of liked when she'd just blurted it out. "CohenI'mPregnant," she'd told him in one breath, breaking the silence and leaving Seth to decipher what exactly it was that she'd just told him. She brought her hand up to her mouth, nervously biting a perfectly manicured nail.

It took him what was probably a few minutes to respond, but for her it seemed like hours. "Um, uh, what did you say?" he asked in disbelief, no way was this happening. Not right now. They were going into their senior year of high school, they'd already been through this with Theresa last summer, what the hell were they supposed do to? What was _he_ supposed to do with this piece of information?

"We have options..." she told him softly, trying not to cry. Damn hormones, it wasn't supposed to go this way. She didn't expect him to, like, jump up and throw a party or anything, but she didn't expect this either. She just sort of thought maybe things would be okay?

Seth just nodded his head, still in a daze. "Uh, yeah, okay," he replied, his voice void of any emotion. He needed to snap out of this, be there for her, but he couldn't seem to do it.

They hadn't talked much after that, both just stared at the television trying to decide what to say. Seth didn't know what to do except hold her hand and atleast try to go to sleep. Of course that didn't happen, but he got up with Summer the next morning anyways. He watched her as she got dressed, trying to see any signs of life in her stomach, worrying that someone may find out when she looked back at him, catching him stare and blushing. "Stop. Look, this doesn't have to be a big deal. I made an appointment, I can go take care of this." Truthfully she was trying to convince herself as much as she was him.

This was a big deal. She was 17 years old and he was 18, there was no way they were ready for any of this. She just wished somebody would tell her what to do.

"Summer Roberts?" the receptionist called, leading her and Seth back into Dr. Goldberg's office. How embarrassing, she felt like everyone was staring at her, even though there were only two other couples in the waiting room and neither looked familiar. She probably should've made this appointment out of Newport, but she probably should have done a lot of things differently. _Like not get knocked up..._ She shook the thoughts out of her head, reaching for Seth's hand and heading into the small room. "Dr. Goldberg will be with you shortly," the receptionist told them with a reassuring smile.

Seth couldn't help but think back to a little over a year ago when he and Ryan had took Theresa here. He wished Ryan was here with him now, that he could talk to him about how this was when he went through this all with Theresa, but he was fairly certain Summer wasn't ready to tell anybody, and he wasn't going to be the one to break the news.

"Are you nervous?" he asked her softly, knowing it was a stupid question, but he hated it being so quiet. Of course she was nervous.

She nodded her head, looking around the room. She hated seeing the doctor, other people touching her just sort of freaked her out. Especially when it came to someone else down _there_. She shuddered just thinking about it and Seth put his hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, Cohen? Thanks for coming here with me."

As much as it scared him to be here with Summer, he knew it'd be even worse without him here for her. It wasn't like he could just not go, she was sort of having his baby after all. Or maybe not, maybe they were just getting all worked up over nothing. Probably not, but he tried to keep that thought in his mind as they waited for the doctor.

"Ms. Roberts, I'm Dr. Goldberg," the doctor said, coming into the room and interrupting her train of thought. "And you are?" he asked, shaking Seth's hand.

"Um, Seth Cohen. Her boyfriend, the father?" he answered unsure of what exactly he was in this situation, but the doctor seemed to accept the answer.

"Very well, Summer, if you could just change into this gown that'd be great, I'm going to just go grab your information from my receptionist and we're going to do a sonogram. I can have you out of here in 30 minutes," he told her with a smile, handing her the gown and walking out of the room.

She took a deep breath, standing up and slipping out of her dress to put the gown on as quickly as possible, suddenly very self conscious.

"Nothing I haven't seen before," Seth joked, trying to make her smile. He pulled her down onto his lap, kissing the top of her head. "We'll be fine. Maybe I can ask the doctor if we can take this lovely frock here home? A souvenir?"

Summer smacked his head, leaning back into him. "Haha, don't you think it's a little early to joke?"

"But that's what Cohen's do, we make jokes at inappropriate times. It's our charm, you see, it's what made you fall for me."

"Oh really, I thought it was your money," she suggested, relaxing a bit.

"Ouch, that hurts right here, Sum," he said, taking his hands to his heart when there was a light knock on the door. "Come in," he called to the doctor, pulling Summer a bit closer.

"Alright Summer, if you can just take a seat on the examination table that'd be great," he instructed, setting the sonogram machine up as Summer got situated. He hooked it up to her, adjusting the monitor and moving around a bit. "Do you see that?" he asked, pointing to what Seth thought looked like a blob. "That's your baby," he told them with a smile. "Now there are always options and I want the two of you to think all of them through very carefully, you're going to have to make a big decision and I'll be giving you some pamphlets-"

"That's fine," Seth said, cutting him off. And somehow he knew that he was right, it _was_ going to be fine. Somehow they'd make it.

Summer got into the passenger seat at Seth's insistence that he was driving her, buckling her seatbelt and putting the pamphlets she had received into her purse. "Don't think you're going to start driving my car or anything, this is a one-time thing," she warned him, flicking the radio on.

"But Summy, Dr. Goldberg told me I'd need to take extra care of you," he reminded her with a goofy grin, to which he received a punch in the arm from Summer. "Or on second thought we might need someone to take care of me."

"Cohen, this is serious. We're talking about a whole nother person. Can we do this? You can barely take care of yourself."

He shrugged, unsure of what to say. "I don't know. But we can try, I'm sure we won't fuck it up too bad," he said, noticing the glare she was shooting at him. "Look, Summer, I really don't know. I think we can but this is up to you, alright?"

She hate that he was like this, sometimes she wished he could just be an ass for like a minute and make her do what he said. "Alright," she agreed, nodding her head.

"You want to go to the Crab Shack to get some lunch?"

"Yeah, that sounds really good right about now."

Two hours, three orders of lobster rolls and four hamburgers later, the two had finished eating. They managed to take their minds off their little situation for awhile atleast, and were just trying to enjoy themselves like they'd been attempting to do all summer. Everyone tried so hard to be normal at the Cohen household, but it just wasn't the same without Kirsten.

Every week everyone would go visit her, including Summer and even Marissa, Julie and Jimmy, who'd seem to have gotten back together, on occasion. It'd become sort of a ritual, they'd stop at In N' Out on the way and get Kirsten a double hamburger, she wouldn't admit it but they all knew the food at rehab wasn't that great. Seth would burn her a new CD, usually introducing her to one of his favorite bands, he was still working on getting her into Death Cab, and Ryan was in charge of bringing DVDs for the portable DVD player they'd gotten her. Summer loaded up on magazines, Riviera, Cosmo, Glamour, Vogue, the usual, and would occasionally bring photos she'd gotten of the guys. Julie, ever the thoughtful one, would bring hydrangeas to brighten up the place, she'd actually talked to the management about painting Kirsten's room a different color because "there was a negative air" about the icky beige color. They all knew Kirsten being there was for the best, but that didn't keep them from counting the weeks until she got out. Right now it was set at four. But now with this latest news, Summer was actually beginning to appreciate the fact that they had some time before she would return, before they would have to tell her. That could be her excuse, that she wanted Kirsten to be home before they told anyone.

"Let's just walk around for a bit, I ate way too much and feel huge," Summer suggested, unbuttoning her jeans and taking Seth's hand. Seth agreed way too easily, causing her to stop and look at him. "Hey, what are you thinking about?" she asked, growing a little concerned.

"Captain Oats is so used to being an only child and I just don't know how he's going to take any competition, he gets upset very easily and his hooves hurt, you know," Seth trailed off, continuing to walk.

"Great, I'm going to have two kids to look after."

"So we're really going to do this?"

Summer stopped once again, this time in front of a store window, looking in at the display of baby clothes they had set up. "Yeah. We really are."

"Good," Seth replied, happy with the answer. "Because I was thinking we should get cracking on baby names..."

"Don't even start Cohen, we're not naming our baby Darth Vader."


End file.
